when he went to Vienna in August to consult the physician Professor
Lanefranque about his indifferent health (he wrote to Josephine on 26
August that he had not felt well in years), he conducted a brief liaison
with the nineteen-year-old Viennese Eva Kraus, who was said to have
borne him a son. What is certain is that in September his regular mistress
Marie Walewska announced that she was pregnant. Once it was
demonstrated that the Emperor could indeed sire children, it was evident
to all well-informed observers that Josephine's days were numbered.
Finally, in October, the Austrians accepted that they could stall no
longer and signed the Treaty of Schonbrunn on 14 October. Napoleon
imposed harsh conditions to assuage the shock of the 1809 crisis. Francis
I was forced to cede Carinthia, Carniola and most of Croatia, including
Fiume, !stria and Trieste. Bavaria was given Salzburg and the upper
valley of the Inn, while the Grand Duchy of Warsaw got northern
Galicia, Cracow and Lublin. Czar Alexander, who had played a double
game throughout, ended up with eastern Galicia. Additionally, Austria
had to pay a war indemnity of 85 millions, and agreed to abide by the
Continental System, limit its army to 1 so,ooo men, and recognize Joseph
as King of Spain.
The humiliation to Austrian national pride found expression in a
manifestation of the dark side of Austrian nationalism. At a military
parade at Schonbrunn, two days before the signing of the treaty, a young
Saxon student, Frederick Staps, tried to assassinate Napoleon while
ostensibly presenting a petition; it was only a chance movement by
General Rapp that diverted the would-be assassin's dagger. Napoleon was
convinced Staps was mentally deranged, possibly from a childhood under
the aegis of his father, a stern Lutheran minister, but Staps refused to
accept this chance of a reprieve and insisted that his action was rational.
'Is a crime nothing to you, then?' Napoleon asked him. 'To kill you is not
a crime, it's a duty!' Staps replied defiantly. He was executed a few days
later and met his end exclaiming: 'Long live Germany. Death to the
tyrant!'
Ever a man to turn any event, however untoward, to his advantage,
Napoleon told Marie Walewska he was concerned at the possible shock to
her unborn child and suggested she return to Poland. He himself left for
Paris two days after the treaty, on 16 October. But he was shaken by the
Staps incident and was convinced that if he had lost at Wagram,
Germany would have flamed into rebellion. As he wrote to Rapp, who
had intercepted the knife thrust: 'This is the result of the secret societies
which infest Germany. This is the effect of fine principles and the light of
marcin
(Marcin)
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